Vintage Classic

What made Pandit Bhimsen Joshi a legend in his lifetime was not just his individualistic and impressive gayaki. There is a special romance in the various stories that surround his evolution from a young boy obsessed with music to a celebrated figure, who, after a chance encounter with an Abdul Karim Khan thumri, ran away from home at age eleven, wandering about on his own for some four years in his quest for a Guru, doing menial jobs, working even as a domestic help to earn a living, travelling ticketless in trains, from Bijapur in Dharwad to Pune to Gwalior and then to Jalandhar where he was finally found and brought back home by his father to receive rigorous training from Sawai Gandharva. 'There was a recklessness in his approach to life which had its own magnetism. He loved life on the fast track, especially with expensive Benz cars. Stories of his periodic binge drinking are legion. But every time he caught himself and brought himself back on track — somewhat like a replay of the time in childhood when he ran away from home and returned'. Sheila Dhar shares an anecdote from that period of Panditji's life when despite having established himself as the country's foremost vocalist, he was passing through a particularly difficult time trying to stop drinking and showed up at a music festival at Harballabh near Jalandhar:

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[T]he audience reaction here was very vocal. They would never allow anything to drag on out of politeness.

Nor did they leave one in any doubt as to who their idols were. They simply worshipped Bhimsen Joshi, who was lovingly referred to as Panditji, and would genuinely be unable to hear anyone else if they knew he had arrived on the scene. As a matter of fact he had, but before making a public appearance he disappeared with two disciples for a quick drink, giving everyone, including his wife, the slip. This led to a series of unforeseen situations. When he could not be traced any where, and twenty thousand waiting people had to be served some thing, a formal request was made to Rais Khan, who was considered by some to have the same stature, to fill in quickly. There was a readymade audience and it seemed the perfect time for him to make his debut. He was escorted to the tuning tent along with Rehana. She must have consulted him about the raga he was going to play and made the required switch in the central gem of his earring (and of course her own nose pin, for moral support) because when he made an appearance on the stage he was a pure white figure from top to toe, a lustrous pearl having replaced the earlier ruby. He looked like a young god as he settled down under the bright lights with his beautiful sitar, a straying curl playing artistically on his forehead. After a while the music began, and gripped the audience immediately with its unusual quality. Rehana joined us in the pandal, biting her lip and simpering nervously as though she was responsible for every note this genius played.

It was a huge stage, and the exquisite figure of Rais Khan looked a bit forlorn under the glaring lights. Nevertheless, he played with aplomb, his head bent dreamily over the frets. When he was midway through the performance. there was an unexpected uproar. The left half of the solid sea of people burst into hysterical applause. The artiste looked up, smiled triumphantly, bowed his head and touched his forehead with his fingers many times in salaams of acknowledgement, quite certain that he had succeeded in impressing this most discriminating of audiences. He could not see what was causing the commotion because it was literally happening behind his back. From the entrance at the right rear of the stage, the tottering figure of Bhimsen Joshi was seen slowly advancing towards the front edge of the stage with a fixed smile on his face. Before he came abreast of Rais Khan, he stopped under the lights with folded hands, swaying slightly in the act of granting ‘darshan’ to his adoring fans whom he had been told were clamouring for him. It was this vision that had caused the uproar, not the musical heights Rais Khan had achieved. He played on, quite innocent of what was sending the western side of the congregation into ecstasies. The organizers sensed that there could be a serious disturbance if something was not done forthwith to withdraw Bhimsen joshi from public view until the sitar item was over.

An usher was despatched to do something about this. He came up behind Bhimsen Joshi on tiptoe, making furtive gestures with his hands, holding a finger to his lips and generally pretending he wasn't there at all. He bent and squirmed so that his thin frame was hidden behind the solid body he had been sent to remove. He grasped the silk kurta at the back of the waist with both hands most respectfully, if such a thing can be imagined, and tried to pull the star backwards into the wings as though he were a kite on an invisible string, when he was swallowed by the black curtain. Rais Khan was still in full cry and continued to play with great ebullience for about five minutes.

Then, two things happened simultaneously. Rais Khan broke a string and had to stop playing while he set things right, and Bhimsen Joshi made another appearance. this time from the left rear of the stage entrance, so that the right half of the congregation should also be favoured with an opportunity to feast their eyes on his person. In his clouded state, he was troubled by the fact that he had been partial to the devotees sitting on the left side and had inadvertently denied a similar opportunity to those on the tight. The purpose of his second appearance was to redress this wrong. When he was fully lit, teetering and smiling, and stretching his arms in greeting. there was a volley of thunderous clapping and another enthusiastic roar rent the air. Rais Khan turned ashen as he realized that this could not possibly be applause because he was still fixing his string and not playing. If only he had happened to look over his shoulder, the mystery would have been cleared, but he did not. The possibility that they could be booing him off the stage slowly hit him. He grabbed the microphone in panic and tried to make a winning speech in refined Lucknow Urdu in the hope of regaining the rapt attention he thought he had earned from this wild crowd in the beginning.

'I have great esteem for the name Harballabh and I had come here with very high hopes. I want to offer to you the treasures that God has been kind enough to bestow on me, but only if you have any use for them. I will play on only if you wish. If not. I will go', he said in an injured tone.

'Now we want Panditji!' they roared in one voice. 'Only Panditji!' This time the usher did not have the guts to pull Bhimsen Joshi back. He weaved under the harsh lights with a vague smile on his bemused face until the whole area was chanting his name and demanding to hear him .The organizers looked resigned and defeated as Rais Khan stalked off in disgust, followed by a small train of indignant supporters led by Rehana.

The blackboard was wiped clean again and the name of Bhimsen Joshi written carefully across it in much larger letters than usual and without any spelling mistakes which was something of a feat. Everyone was waiting. This was the highlight of the whole festival. The universal favourite was taken to the tuning tent to get ready to perform. There his doting followers apparently provided further refreshment disguised as soft drinks so that he did not get into further trouble with his 'jailer' [his wife]. When he mounted the stage in a rich red and gold shawl half an hour later, there was ample evidence of the added inspiration he had received since his last stage appearance. To the regulars of Harballabh, he was nearly God and anything that he uttered would be a divine revelation. The time for judging was long past, buried in remote history. Now the deity had made an entry into the pantheon and the only relevant thing was faith and devotion.

The tanpura is a beautiful instrument in any case, but the pair that were carried to the stage for him were really spectacular. Two disciples stationed themselves on either side of the master and began to strum softly, directing obsequious glances at him so that they could stay in tune with his mood. There was a sarangi player to the left and a tabla player to the right. Behind one of the disciples sat a harmonium player. Two other attendants, one with a thermos and the other carrying a flowered bath towel, flanked the ensemble. Each one in the group was draped in a coloured woollen shawl and the whole looked like an exotic flower arrangement with Bhimsen Joshi as the bouquet's centre. He covered his legs and feet with his red shawl and cleared his throat, his characteristic signals that the recital was about to begin.

Another characteristic dear to the heart of his admirers was his passionate body language when he produced the first note which was supposed to emanate from the solar plexus. To find it, he used to stretch his arms sideways with the palms turned outwards and bend his body forward at the waist. neatly touching the floor with his forehead. Apparently this posture was most effective in locating the centre of his being from where the note had to be fetched up to an audible level. This is what he did now while we all waited in a fever of excitement for him to surface. The dive seemed longer than usual, and we could now hear the expectant breathing of thousands of people. But he did not rise. A whole minute went by and then another. Nothing happened. Slowly, the outstretched arms went limp. The tension went out of the body which was now resting comfortably on the forehead supported by the floor. The other members of the ensemble realized that their hero had passed out. Four of them hurriedly lifted his spreadeagled form which looked like a large tropical bird that had been shot and carried it away from the bright lights. We heard afterwards that on the advice of his wife they had placed the shot bird under a water tap briefly just as it was and that he had made a splendid recovery within two hours.

Meanwhile, the crackling and strident public address system made many nervous attempts to soothe the public. When a nondescript local tabla player filled in, there were repeated assurances that Panditji was only temporarily indisposed and would soon be back to lift our spirits to celestial regions. At long last he was sighted again, dried, combed and changed, but slightly wary. There was no euphoria in his demeanour this time as he took his place on the stage. To our enormous surprise, he immediately broke into a rhythmic Marathi abhang, the kind of light and short piece he usually reserved for the tail end of a very long recital as a sort of inconsequential dessert. He did a competent, business-like job of it and after exactly ten minutes rose, folded his hands in a namaste and walked off the stage.  People rushed towards him as he was coming down the ramp and begged him to favour them with the full exposition of any raga of his choice because this is what they had travelled hundreds of miles to hear and what they had been waiting for since the start of the festival. The abhang, in their humble opinion, could always have come at the end.

'What? Do you mean to tell me that you people did not hear the raga Malkaus which I sang for two hours before I came to the abhang? Where were you?' Panditji countered.

There is no doubt in my mind that he was absolutely sincere when he said that, and that he truly believed he had given a full-fledged conventional concert that night.

Reproduced from Sheila Dhar, Raga’n Josh: Stories from a Musical Life (Black Kite paperback, 2005, Rs 295), with permission from Permanent Black, Ranikhet. This book will be reissued in summer 2011 by Black Kite and Hachette India